Charles Guyard (correspondent in Loire-Atlantique)/Photo credits: THIBAUT DURAND / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 7:57 a.m., February 19, 2024

While the Guingamp hospital (Côtes-d'Armor) is encountering difficulties, local elected officials and hospital members want to bring in Cuban doctors to save their maternity ward, which has been threatened with closure for years. They met Otto Vaillant, Cuban ambassador to France, on Friday.

Bring in Cuban doctors to save a maternity ward? This is the bet launched by defenders of the Guingamp hospital (Côtes-d'Armor), in Brittany, who met the Cuban ambassador on Friday, in a territory marked by difficulties in accessing care. Local elected officials, unions, representatives of doctors and the hospital defense committee, and the hospital director discussed it Friday afternoon in Guingamp with the Cuban ambassador to France, Otto Vaillant.

Shortage of caregivers

Pierre Saliou, chairman of the supervisory board of Guingamp hospital, sees it on a daily basis: the hospital is running out of steam. “We are short of staff in practically all specialties,” he explains at the microphone of Europe 1.

>> READ ALSO - 

Shortage of caregivers: in Hénin-Beaumont, emergency services closed at night during the summer

According to the president, the establishment lacks surgeons, cardiologists and pulmonologists. So, calling on Cuba, a country recognized worldwide for the training of doctors, sounds like a last chance for the Guingamp hospital. “We cooperate all over the world. During covid, we sent a brigade to Martinique,” ​​explains Otto Vaillant.

More foreign doctors in France?

This cooperation does not scare Breton caregivers at all, like Arnaud Meunier, nurse anesthetist. “We already work with Syrian doctors and quite a few African doctors. We have around ten nationalities in our hospital, so why not have Cuban doctors tomorrow!”, he explains.

>> READ ALSO - 

Shortage of caregivers: a private hospital in Nancy closes its emergency rooms

It remains to obtain the green light from the authorities. One thing is certain: this initiative is fully in line with Matignon's new policy which wishes to encourage foreign doctors to come and settle in France.